Following a number of recent high-profile law enforcement and civilian encounters, body cameras worn on a police officer's body have been featured in news reports as a better way to document these interactions, to ensure police accountability, and to maximize public trust. Body cameras are also seen by many police agencies as a technology that can provide the public with visual evidence of the interactions. As body cameras gradually enter the mainstream among law enforcement agencies, police departments seek a system with a specific set of features that enables seamless integration of body camera use into an officer's regular routine with minimal intervention.
Many body camera manufacturers provide on/off switches to manually control operation of the body camera. This places the responsibility on the police officers to remember to activate the body camera when they exit their police vehicle and deactivate the body camera when they re-enter their police vehicle.
Further, since body cameras generally possess a compact form, their batteries are small in size and therefore limited in capacity. The recording time is therefore typically restricted to only a few hours, much less than the required 8-12 hour duration of an officer's shift. Body camera manufacturers typically provide 8-10 hours of battery life between recharges with 4 hours of recording time. Body cameras are typically required to be placed in a docking station for recharging. The docking station could be at the police station or in the vehicle. In either case, recharging the battery requires that the body camera be physically removed from the officer's body and placed in the dock, thus resulting in an inconvenient recharge procedure for the user.